Road Tripping Through Ireland

I went to post about our second day in Ireland and found far too many photos of our road trip from Dublin to Cork, so I have made that story into it's own post. I'm going to try to speed the posting up now that the National Holiday is out of the way.

On Friday, June 18th we set out from our Hotel in Dublin onto the countryside of Ireland on our way to Cork. This day was the only day we got a sprinkle of rain. We were SO lucky weather wise. We actually came home with a tan from our time in Ireland. Not a single day of icky weather while we were there. Everyone we met told us how fortunate we were.

The signs there were in both English, and Gaelic.

Not all roads in Ireland are marked either, so if you end up on an unmarked one you have to drive and drive until you find one that is marked. Also, they use a number system that apparently was invented by a crazy person, because it was very hard to follow. Not as hard as those streets that had 4 or 5 names, as they did in Dublin where we lost our car, but hard anyway.

There were tons of round abouts. I found it hard to remember that we would enter these round abouts going left, rather than right. So every time I would count to the exit we should be taking I would be wrong, because I presumed to enter to the right rather than the left.

I did most of the navigation, but here's a photo of Gregg actually handling the map.

The landscape in Ireland was breathtaking.

Here is an example of a city road in Kilkenny. I am so glad we had a tiny car for this trip. I cannot imagine trying to navigate my way around in my personal car.

We got lost in Kilkenny looking for Kilkenny Castle, but there was a lot to see there, so we really didn't mind.

More Kilkenny...

Here is a lovely pub/restaurant.

This is a two way street. And that car in frame is NOT large by any means.

I have lots of photos like this. I was just in love with the stone walls and the greenery that surrounded them.

More stone wall.

Still lost in Kilkenny, but isn't it beautiful?!

This is obviously a one way street. Add in driving on the wrong side of the road and being in a foreign country and other people in a hurry behind you and you *might* turn down a few of these yourself. I know we did.

It's like I Spy. We would get within sight of our destination but the roads wouldn't lead us there the first few times. With all of the one ways, winding roads that look like they head the way you want to go, and double named streets, Ireland cities were... interesting.

But we finally made it. This is Kilkenny Castle. We FINALLY made it.